Torrent Freak reports that the infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X, which runs a chain of internet cafes. GGF will take control of the site in August.

GGF plans to make significant changes to the site's methods. "We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site," said Global Gaming Factory CEO Hans Pandeya. The revamped Pirate Bay will use some kind of new P2P distribution tech developed by Peerialism, another GGF acquisition. The new standard is separate from, but backward-compatible with, BitTorrent.

"A lot of people are worried," a statement on The Pirate Bay reads. "We're not and you shouldn't be either!" The site's organizers say that profits from the sale will be put into a foundation "to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess [sic] of the nets."

In our minds, this is even more significant than the sale and eventual relaunch of Napster, because Napster was never so closely connected to a political party.